


bloody kisses

by Sylv



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Blood and Gore, F/F, Magic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-02
Updated: 2013-11-02
Packaged: 2017-12-31 06:15:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1028226
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sylv/pseuds/Sylv
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kali let the saw drop in the crevice at the middle of the box until it was resting against Cora’s midsection.</p><p>Cora is Kali's new magician's assistant and learns firsthand how Kali's unbelievable tricks work.</p>
            </blockquote>





	bloody kisses

Cora could actually feel her stomach lurch with each step that she took up to the dressing room backstage. People hurried past her without so much as a second glance. She supposed that she wasn’t much to look at right now, dressed in her jeans and sweatshirt, bag over her shoulder.

She stopped in front of the wooden door, staring at the scribbles of names and dates and little doodles. Her heart was beating a rapid tattoo against her chest, and she nearly turned on her heel and fled the building. The only thing stopping her was the faces of Derek and Laura floating in mind’s eye, smiling condescendingly down at her and saying, “We’ll support you in whatever you want to do Cora. But when this falls through, let us know if you want help finding a real job.”

Screw them. It had taken a few years for Cora to get where she was now, and she wasn’t giving up her first gig with a famous, traveling magician just because she was nervous. That was not her style.

With a deep breath, Cora turned the handle of the door and entered the cluttered backstage area.

The first thing that she noticed was that there was a lot of noise. People were laughing and chattering all over the place, applying make-up, shimmying into their costumes, practicing dance steps in the corners. Colors abound, mirrors line the walls, and Cora feels herself flush when she noticed women walking by in nothing but their underwear.

She hurried past them, searching for the familiar silky hair and dark skin of her new boss. Cora spotted Kali towards the end of the room, carefully painting her nails a deep red that looked almost black. Cora sidled up behind her and dropped her bag on the floor next to the chair, bending down to shuffle through her belongings.

Kali glanced at her quickly before going back to her nails. “Get changed,” came the command, and Cora wasted no time pulling her outfit out of the bag, hurrying to obey.

In what seemed like no time at all, it was time for them to take the stage for their show. As they host announced the next act, Kali leaned over to Cora who was trying desperately to wipe her sweaty hands on her glittery skirt.

“I need you to trust me,” she said in a low voice. Cora looked at her and was about to question that statement when Kali shook her head and placed a soft finger over her lips. “Just trust me,” she repeated, and before Cora could even nod her consent, the woman was striding out onto stage to uproarious applause.

And then, before she knew it, Kali was calling her name as if sharing a little secret with the audience, and Cora’s legs walked her out to stand by the magician’s side. She smiled her pretty smile that she perfected in the mirror and waved casually enough that she was relieved her muscles even remembered how.

Lights were glaring in her face, and there was a dark mass of people sitting in rows and rows and rows in the theater in front of her. Kali was suddenly holding her hand and brushing her lips across the back of her hand, and Cora felt all the hair at the back of her neck stand up. Kali then met her eyes and smiled, devious and beautiful and Cora’s heart dropped to somewhere around her navel.

“Precious, isn’t she?” she heard Kali say to the audience, and there was a rumble of laughter. “Fetch the box for me, Cora.”

Cora strides off to where the long wooden box is sitting on the side, feeling light on her feet even in the heels strapped around her ankles. As she is pushing it out center stage, she hears Kali introducing her ‘first trick’ and asking a member of the audience to come up on stage with her.

“Test the rope for me.” Kali handed it to the man, who tugged and twisted it before pronouncing it real. He then stepped over behind Cora whose hands were crossed behind her back. He started to tie them together, and Kali made a show of bending over to inspect the knots.

“You can tie them tighter than that. Make it impossible for her to struggle out of them,” she winked at the audience. “Cora can handle a little bit of pain.”

The man was eager to obey, pulling her arms back at an angle that verged on too uncomfortable, and tied the rope around her wrists tightly enough that the fibers started to bite into her skin. Once she was secured, Kali opened up the box for him to inspect as well. Cora froze, not expecting that. She had never been in a show where a random audience member was allowed to look inside the box. It would ruin the trick, where another woman would be lying in the lower half, curled up.

The box was empty, and all one compartment.

Once this was confirmed, Kali shooed the man back to his seat, and helped Cora step delicately into the box, her head emerging from one end and her legs sticking out at the other. The magician then hefted up a saw, a real one that she pricked her finger on and sucked the blood away from.

Cora began to panic. As subtly as she could, she shifted back and forth, testing the bonds that she had been tied in. The wood of the box pressed into her arms and neck, and she couldn’t get enough space to maneuver out of anything. She squeezed her eyes shut, and therefore didn’t notice that Kali was leaning down by her ear until her breath tickled her ear and she whispered quietly enough that only she could hear:

“This is going to hurt. You’ll be fine. Trust me. Now I need you to turn and smile at the audience. We’re putting on a show for them, after all.”

Cora turned her head to the right and grimaced out at the audience. They were all one big blurry mass, as she realized that her eyes were tearing up. Kali let the saw drop in the crevice at the middle of the box until it was resting against Cora’s midsection.

Then she began to saw back and forth. The teeth of the saw bit into Cora’s soft skin easily, through the organs and the muscles. White hot pain blinded her, and she bit her lip to the point of bleeding to keep from crying out; it didn’t work. She screamed, screamed and writhed and was certain that she was going to die. She could feel the blood seeping into her beautiful outfit, coursing down onto the wood, and still Kali kept cutting until, with one final press of strength, she snapped through Cora’s spine.

The bloody saw was dropped to the ground, and Kali spun the two halves of the box outward so that the audience could see the grisly scene inside. There were gasps and cries from them and rising crescendo of shouts as Cora’s new boss pushed the halves back together. Cora was on the point of passing out, but somewhere in the back of her mind she knew that she shouldn’t still be breathing, shouldn’t be alive at all.

Kali rested her hands on the box, and Cora wasn’t sure what was happening, but she felt another moment of excruciating pain before it dissolved into numbness. There was silence in the room. You could have heard a pin drop.

The top of the box was thrown open, and Cora was motioned to step up out of it. Kali untied the rope holding her wrists together as Cora looked down at her body, the torn outfit, the drying blood all across her stomach. Kali stepped out from behind her and grabbed her hand, smiling widely at the audience and pulling Cora down into a bow with her.

There was a pause before the audience erupted into cheers, stamping their feet and clapping their hands. Cora had what felt like ten shots of adrenaline coursing to the ends of her fingers and toes. She was shaking, there were tear stains of her cheeks, and she had never felt more alive in her entire existence.

It was the bloodiest, most gruesome, most successful start to a show that Cora had ever been in.

Later that night, Kali was licking the browning blood off of her body, ripping the already torn costume to shreds with those red claws of hers, and the thrill of danger, of survival, returned.

Cora moaned into Kali’s mouth as her boss’s fingers found her center, and Kali laughed deep in her chest, sucking her lips forcefully.

“You’ll never look at blood the same way again,” she promised. Cora believed her.


End file.
